


my famed disappearing act

by baliset



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: 12x100, Gen, Maincord prohibited swears, Seeing ghosts in more ways than one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:49:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29659929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baliset/pseuds/baliset
Summary: Mcdowell Karim stands at 6’3’’, pitches better than ze hits, and talks to ghosts. Two of these things are true.(or: mcdowell, mike, and season 10.)
Relationships: Mcdowell Karim & Mike Townsend
Comments: 14
Kudos: 26





	my famed disappearing act

**Author's Note:**

> i PROMISE this is my last 12x100. once again the format is by [lewis atillo](https://pigeonize.medium.com/), brought to blaseball by crookedsaint's fic [let me let you down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29314074)!

1.

Mcdowell Karim stands at 6’3’’, pitches better than ze hits, and talks to ghosts. Two of these things are true.

More true-or-not things about Mcdowell: ze has gotten too lazy to dye or cut hir hair all season, leaving it a tangled, brown rat’s nest on hir head. Ze’s the owner and proprietor of a psychic shop called the Monkey’s Paw, where ze - again - talks to ghosts, for money. Ze doesn’t really _want_ to play blaseball, but it sounded like fun at the time, when ze signed up for it. Ze forgets, sometimes, that ze ever signed up at all.

2.

Mcdowell exits the shadows unexpectedly, not dressed for the occasion, called to the field in the threadbare t-shirt and flannel pants ze spends lazy weekends in. The grass is wet under hir bare feet. Ze shields hir eyes against the sun to see the people around hir, and finds one of them close enough to touch, frozen like a deer in headlights.

“Hey,” Mcdowell says. “I know you.”

“ _Derrick?_ ” Mike Townsend asks - shrill, startled, like it should mean something.

Mcdowell opens hir mouth, and finds hirself back in the shop, facing no one but the dusty mirror on the wall.

3.

Mcdowell is dyeing hir hair in hir apartment above the shop when ze sees a ghost for the first time. It’s the outline of a person hanging over hir shoulder in the mirror, flickering like static, too faint and fuzzy to make out any distinguishing features. It’s there in real life, too, and not just the reflection, when Mcdowell whirls around to check. 

Mcdowell braces hirself against the sink, and does not scream.

“Fuck,” ze says instead, quiet, almost embarrassed. “You couldn’t have, like, given me a sign or something before this? I’ve been pretending you guys exist for years.”

4.

Mike Townsend wanders into the shop mid-season, shamefaced, hands dug deep into his pockets. He’s wearing glasses this time. He wasn’t, on the field.

“Hi,” Mike says, his gaze boring a hole into the floor. “Sorry. About the...you look like someone I used to know.”

“Yeah?” Mcdowell asks, pushing hir lip ring around with the tip of hir tongue.

“I mean - not _that_ much, but I couldn’t see right, and I thought -” Mike looks up. “Can we start over?”

“Sure,” Mcdowell says. “Hi. I’m Mcdowell. I’m psychic.”

“I’m Mike. Townsend.”

“I know,” Mcdowell says. “I told you. I’m psychic.”

5.

Mcdowell sees the ghosts everywhere - in the park, at the movie theater, at the grocery store. They’re usually still, unmoving, until they notice Mcdowell noticing them. Sometimes Mcdowell ends up with a pack of ghosts trailing behind hir like ducklings, sometimes ze comes home with just one follower. The shop has more ghosts than customers, now, even on a good day.

“I wish I knew who you were,” Mcdowell tells them, more than once. Ze can never see their faces, or anything to distinguish them from one another. 

The ghosts don’t seem to mind. Maybe just being seen is enough.

6.

“Your hair!” Mike says, over the jangle of the shop bell. He comes by every few days, now, and brings coffee when he does.

“I got bored,” Mcdowell says. Hir hair was blond a week ago, now it’s acid green. Ze can never settle on a color, but ze always seems to come back to green.

“I like it. It’s nice.” Mike sets hir coffee - flat white - down on the counter. “Listen, I’m up against the Thieves tomorrow, and -”

Mcdowell rolls hir eyes, and reaches for hir tarot deck. “I’m gonna make you start paying for readings one day, Townsend.”

7.

Mcdowell tries the Ouija board. Ze’s pretty sure ze knows what the end result will be, but regular seances haven’t worked, and hir spirit box is a piece of junk ze got off the internet. So Mcdowell sits in the reading room of hir shop and balances hir fingertips lightly on the planchette, eyes closed, waiting for someone else to guide hir hand.

Ze wakes up in hir chair in the same position, fingers folded over the planchette. The only change is the blanket someone’s dragged onto hir, haphazardly draped over hir lap.

“Thanks,” Mcdowell says, to the empty shop.

8.

“I looked up the guy,” Mcdowell says. Ze isn’t one to beat around the bush.

Mike, sprawled on the couch in the reading room, gives hir a look. “Who?”

“The dead guy,” Mcdowell says. “The you-look-like-you-saw-a-ghost guy. You’re pretty blind without your glasses, huh?”

“In my defense,” Mike mutters, looking away, “your hair wasn’t green then.”

“I could seance him. If you want.”

“I thought that was a con.”

“Sure.” Mcdowell glances at the spectres littering the shop - one standing behind the cash register, one apparently entranced by a shelf of crystals. “I dunno. Sometimes it makes people feel better.”

9.

The ghosts don’t talk. Mcdowell doesn’t even know if they _can_. But they get restless as the season winds down, flowing liquid-like around the shop in a writhing mass, making it hard to focus when Mcdowell is trying to do a palm reading or sell someone on a new kind of incense.

The ghosts shimmer in a way that make Mcdowell’s eyes hurt. Ze keeps the shop dark, sometimes closes it early to lie down in hir room upstairs with the blinds pulled shut.

“Just tell me what you want,” ze groans into hir pillow. The ghosts say nothing back.

10.

The Hall Stars claw their way out of the ground to fight the Pods. Mcdowell can’t see the television to watch it. The ghosts in hir apartment are whipped into a frenzy, the air so thick with them that Mcdowell feels like ze’s underwater.

Hir phone rings, and it’s Mike.

“Can I come over?” ze asks, once ze’s on the line. “I can’t breathe in here.”

“I was gonna ask you that,” Mike says.

They meet at Green Lake Park instead. It’s cold. Mcdowell trades Mike a flask of whiskey for his jacket, and they don’t talk about the game.

11.

Mike shows up with coffee after the election. He doesn’t have to say anything. Mcdowell can see it on his face - he’s back in the shadows. There’s no anger, no uncertainty in Mike’s expression; just relief. His posture is a little easier, a weight slid from his shoulders. Mcdowell understands. Ze feels the same way about the relative lack of ghosts in the shop, after Day X.

“You hate pitching,” Mcdowell observes, hopping up onto the counter to sit.

Mike smiles, and hops up with hir. “I didn’t used to.”

“After ten seasons?” Mcdowell sips hir coffee. “You deserve it.”

12.

Mcdowell shaves the sides of Mike’s undercut. He shaves hirs. They get takeout, and eat on Mike’s couch while Mcdowell lets the dye set in hir hair.

“Your apartment doesn’t have ghosts,” Mcdowell says.

Mike nearly chokes. “I thought -”

“I can see them,” Mcdowell says. “Just shapes. Can’t hear ‘em or anything.”

Mike’s never again looked at hir with the deer-in-the-headlights recognition from that first day on the field, never makes hir feel like anything less than Mcdowell. The way he looks at hir now isn’t any different.

“I would hate that,” he says.

Mcdowell shrugs. “Doesn’t bother me much.”

**Author's Note:**

> this one goes out to whoever told me months ago that i should adopt mcdowell onto my island of misfit garages. i'm there now! i'm here with you, appreciating hir!
> 
> title is from my famed disappearing act by thank you scientist. you can find me on twitter @corpserevivers, on tumblr as kentuckycorpsereviver, or in the crabitat discord server! and comments are as always appreciated!


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